


Winterhell

by regnant



Series: Of Stag's Velvet and Lion's Blood [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Christmas/Holiday AU, F/M, Gen, Kid Fic, Pre Rule of Three
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 09:39:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13074171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regnant/pseuds/regnant
Summary: When lions and stags venture North through powdery snow and into the wolves' den, blood is bound to spill... Well, blood, or blackberry jam. Over the course of seven days, Lannisters, Starks, Baratheons, and even a Tyrell or two must manage to share the same space for the sake of the Winter Harvest, and the possibility of merging their families. As Northron and Southron alike aim to share and learn the traditions belonging to the other, it seems that our twins may defect to some treasonous belief in the new gods to avoid the positively insipid wrath of the old.Brace yourselves, liquor is coming.A Christmas/Winter Holiday AU set in modern Westeros.





	1. Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> I have missed you all very, very much.

I. Stranger

Cersei feels _blind_.

She can recall the frightening color encompassing her reality as a child, when the lions at the Rock had roared too loudly as the lightning set beside the sounds served to knock the cable out. White noise, static, they call it.

That is how the world looks this far north.

She can only be grateful that Robert elected to ride with Renly, Loras, and little Steffon. This car ride may have been unbearable elsewise. Instead, she is surrounded by brother and their babies, her true family, a perfect pride of five snuggled in tight with the heat blasting set against the snow outside. They'd had to take Jaime's crossover for this particular trip. Cersei minds little, though. The four wheel drive is much better suited to the climate here than her convertible left neglected back at home, and she is happy for the space. _Poor Cherry. Have to give her a good wax when I get back._

Cersei breaks the snow's spell, glancing back at their three babes, all now laid up in peaceful rest, constrained only by car seat straps. She heaves a sigh of relief, turning back to brother, whose gaze finds naught but sleet raining upon the street. "Joff finally fell asleep."

Jaime's eyes flick back to confirm her assertion, his hand leaving the steering wheel to join hers. Their pair of thumbs, newly unhalved, stroke absently together as though signing welcome home in a language silent to innocent bystanders. They have both hungered for skin throughout the hours of today's journey, seeking naught but the other. "I was hoping he might soon. It's hell not being able to touch you." Even seemingly alone in the canopy of sleep, the twins know little more than a whisper is allowed set against the silence. "I missed you."

"I'm right here," she answers, almost puzzled.

"That's when it's the hardest, when I miss you the most," he admits.

"When I'm right here." It isn't a question. Sister feels the same.

Tires crunch like rubber soles into the soft snow. Cersei's attention to the sounds prolong a lack of speech that comes with a solemn understanding that this circumstance, however sad, will likely never change.

The blanket of white is only broken by the grey of the Kingsroad Gate. Towers and spires loom ahead at the end of her field of view, breaking the delusion of sightlessness from the reflection of sunglow on its antithesis. The walls of Winterfell taunt them even leagues away. They have arrived first, ahead of time, only making the next week a few moments longer than it might have been.

 _Best to enjoy it while we can._ She bids him pull over, mischief decorating her face in a smirk.

They idle in a haven of inevitability for a moment, hovering ahead of the daunting task ahead in neutral as tailpipe heat turns falling snow to seething vapor outside ever so quietly. She pulls his hand back toward her, separating the fingers there, kissing each pad just once, placing one more in his palm, closing the digits into a fist. The kiss is a token, a favor for him to carry into battle. It is an old exercise from his jousting days, perhaps one in futility now, but it serves to preserve their strength.

_"You always carry my love with you, brother."_

_"Always."_

This particular ritual is old. They needn't speak the words anymore.

The silence is a gift that Cersei can't wait to unwrap with greedy teeth. Patience escapes her as she grasps his face.

Their twin tongues tangle in solar flares converse to the tides of ice littering the air outside, clasping lips ever wanting more than they can have of the other set, for that is always the way, _always, always, always,_ and mirrored fingers knit together for the last time for what may be hours. It's a terrible risk, even now as the children laze in dreams of something warmer, for a discovery of the heat between the two could mean death. They stay just like that, clutching hands and groping skin, too afraid to even find breath save for that exiting the lungs of the other because the moment would be imperfect with a single sunlit hair brushed out of place. She strokes his cheek when she finally pulls away, holding him at arm's length.

The gesture is melancholy. Both know that it signals an end to the peace that they have found. They goldbrick just a little longer in the heat, grateful for the delusions of soccer fields, wrestling matches, and sword fights that dance behind the eyes of their children, veiling the three from this reality, leaving them this space. Space they have, and space they hate, for closeness is ever better.

The distance lessens, closes just as soon as the car restarts. The wheels beneath them lurch to a stop, and the doors wander their way open. Seat belts come unglued from waking bodies still shaking with sleep, and all too soon, the two halves must cease to make a whole.

_Time to be brother and sister again._

With each cub bundled in down and fleece, manes of fur encircling chilled faces, sister spins on her heel, making for the hatchback what holds her own fur coat. Brother helps her into the great cloak of crimson shadowskin. A gilding treatment ghosts along the tips of every fiber, catching prisms of glory in the sticking snow.

_In the north or the south, a Lannister is a Lannister._

Cersei almost regrets condemning the gate that stretches before them, except for how she never regrets anything, be it slighting enemies or singing praise. Up close, the Casterly queen can see past snow to the colors dancing beneath the thin layer of ice. Lights of every color drip like glimmering jewels down fortified grey masses of brick and mortar. Drifts of spun sugar hang upon the ridges of every tower above.

It's unspeakably beautiful. _Far more so than last time._

She looks back at the sound of strides. Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen leave clouds of bone dust in their wake as they kick up snow, eager to get through the gate. She murmurs to them to hold up, because it would not make a good impression for them to act so rude and rowdy, but it makes no matter. She knows that even her children could never be quiet in a place so exciting as this, especially not Tommen and his big sister, at only two and three. It's too beautiful, too lively, too new. She cracks half a smile, incited by their glee, turning her face to the side so that curls shield her face such that no one will see.

Those sorts of smiles are only for Jaime.

When they cross the threshold, a receiving party waits for them. She sees Ned first, on the end of a line of who she assumes to be his children, though most of them look more Tully than Stark. Ahead of them stands a woman that she recognizes as Catelyn, her flames for hair and ice for eyes, with her arm on the shoulder of who must be her daughter, a dead ringer for the woman.

_The girl my son is meant to marry._

Though it has been hailed as a visit for celebrating the Winter Harvest Festival with Robert's closest friend and their family, the truth of it is that Father wishes to arrange Joffrey's marriage to Ned's eldest daughter at the only time of the year when they can have a moment away from the on-the-books segment of their little business. Robert, ever Father's most foolish pawn, seems to believe that joining the Stark company to the Lannister-Baratheon empire is the purpose of the union, but of course Father seeks control of the coin coating the streets of the North over all. Not that it matters. _The less that oaf knows, the better._

Cersei bends to the eye level of her children, turning to face them. She licks a finger, rubbing a chocolate smudge from little Tommy's face. "Silly little lion," she murmurs, patting his head. She moves to Myrcella then, taking a moment to fuss over her, tucking a stray hair behind her ear and fluffing braids of pink-dipped gold up onto shoulders. "Mind your courtesies, and that hair, Princess," she advises seriously. "We want to show these northerners how beautiful Southron braids can be, hm? Now, you two stay with your Uncle Jaime. Just for a moment, I'll be back."

The two younger children seem to mind little. Tommen, ever the baby of the family, is already in a competition with his sister over being held first, and Cersei worries for a moment that someone might remark about how close the two are with their uncle. _It's not as though it's something he's worked to deserve._ The thought is almost bitter, and she breathes it away, turning to her eldest son, her true lion cub, coincidentally Jaime's apparent least favorite child. "Make sure you are very nice with Sansa, sweetling." She brushes hair from his eyes, smiling at the twinkle there. _The ghost of his father._ "Use your best manners. Make sure you smile and listen to what she says, play nice and share, alright? It's very important to me that you two get along."

Joffrey nods, ever charismatic, looking toward mother and daughter just paces away. "Yes, of course, Mother." She pats him on the back, giving a little shove, and his feet find their place in the snow, just ahead of the two.

"Lady Catelyn," Cersei greets amiably, ever mindful of her courtesies. "A pleasure to see you again." She bends, half-curtsies in the snow in front of the younger redhead, smiling. "And you must be Sansa. Hello, little dove." Fingers encircle Joff's shoulder, edging him toward the smiling girl.

Clearly, no introductions are needed. Sansa blushes, half hiding her face in her cloak as she curtsies politely. "My lady mother told me you were coming. It's my great honor to meet you." Sansa holds out her hand, letting Joffrey take it, and he kisses it like the little gentleman that she has taught him to be. _He's a little heartbreaker._ Cersei looks back to her family, eyes lingering on Jaime's impressed face. From the casual grasp of uncle's arms, Tommen gasps, pointing.

"He kissed her!"

The babe's observation incites a roar of chuckles, breaking the ice, and soon enough young and old alike are eager to mingle and meet. Cersei watches as children clad in red and white hats laugh and play, as Sansa and Myrcella quickly find the court ladies that live inside the other, as Cella develops an instant infatuation with Sansa's husky puppy, aptly _called_ Lady. The brightness of the lights decorating walls and trees alike seems to create a heat that scarcely eases the chill of the winter air, and for the moment, there is peace.

A boarish bellow breaks the spell.

"Ned!" The elder twin whirls on booted heels, meeting the source of this brutish interruption. The mass of a man whose presence she has dreaded all morning crunches through the fluff toward them, and when wolf and stag meet, they envelop each other in a great bear hug befitting the climate. Immediately, Robert seeks to make demands. _About all he's good at._ "Take me to your crypt, I want to pay my respects."

"My love," Cersei implores, the name the subtle sort of mockery that she can afford, "we've driven for hours, the children are just getting acquainted. Surely the dead can wait."

Husband looks through wife, and her eyes burn greener still with hate, rivaling the lights hung 'round them in the needled evergreens. The only of Father's pawns to defy her so openly would have to be the one that she married. _Any man on this earth would want me, save for him._ She won't have it, won't have this ignorant humiliation, not so soon after the great house of the North coming forth to adore her darling boy, not all but nine years in.

_Surely even ghosts meet the Stranger this far north._

"My _love_?" Cersei insists as he turns around, leaving regal strides in the powder dusting their feet like old memories blown away. She inclines her head to meet him, their noses almost touching. Slender fingers find the black wire of his beard, and to anyone else it might look like they are about to kiss, but they know better. He looks at her the way that he does when his hands are around her neck, daring her to oppose him, and she hates that worst of all. "If you wanted to pay tribute to Lyanna Stark," she whispers, "you could have just done it in the bedroom."


	2. Crone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, we may find sweetness in the aftermath of the bitterest storm.
> 
> Chapter two sees our twins discussing the wisdom of the Crone, where she left it and where she might have. Their decisions do not always reflect her judgments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains brief references to miscarriage and conception. Alcohol use throughout, and some naughtiness, but that shouldn't be new. :3

II. Crone

He can't help his surprise as he finds her at the table when he makes his way into the bedroom that Lady Stark has assigned him. Even in the bustle of guests finding their way to their new homes for the week and babies shrieking with glee in the snow, the great castle is still very much _awake_ , yet here she sits before him, drowsing with mug in hand. He's expected that he may have had need of a blanket, _or three,_ in such a cold locale, but the water pumping through the walls keeps it adequately warm, and Jaime thinks that it's no wonder Father wants a piece of the StarkSteam geothermal energy empire for his own.

She makes no movement to indicate that she even knows he is here, cares, cares for anything at all. _He really got to her this time._

"Cersei."

Sister looks up at brother from her cup, glass eyes glinting red and white as they reflect the decorations that hang from the ceiling. Jaime ducks under a holographic snowflake as silver scarcely brushes gold, closing and locking the door behind him. He hovers over the seat beside her, waiting for the tirade floating on her heart.

The words never come, though. Porcelain graces her mouth, silencing whatever angers may amble along her tongue. Those red lips come away milky, and Jaime can smell what he recognizes to be eggnog, eggnog and...

 _Cinnamon_. The biting, stifling cinnamon and butterscotch of Cersei's favorite whiskey liqueur in wintertime. It doesn't get all too cold back home, but she still likes to keep warm.

"Spiking your drink at one in the afternoon?"

"Shhhhh," she asserts, blowing bubbles like lazy tides into the sea of spiced viscosity. "It's our secret."

Jaime closes his eyes, as though putting it out of sight will erase the scene set before him, but that's just the problem. Her soft giggles, an obvious mask for anger, the ambient light she radiates, a distraction from her wringing hands, they permeate the lid skin like sunlight, burning his retinas. He can still see her, even when he means to avoid it, for gold may shine, even in ruin.

"Sit," she says, cracking the shield of his darkness as eyes edge open.

"Everyone will miss us outside," he protests, obeying anyway.

"Everyone outside is busy with the snow, even that bastard ward Jon and his almost-brother." She takes a lingering drag of the drink, surveying his face. "I say we make our own fun _in here._ " Before he can ask what that means, she retrieves a second mug and the bottle of Arbor Autumn from the chair next to her, sliding them toward him.

Golden curls shake their disapproval as firelight fragments on the string lights behind them. Jaime has never approved of Cersei's liquid escapism, least of all today. _Certainly one bad habit that she and Tyrion have in common._

"Just for a little while," she compromises, scrunching up her face in that way that he can never resist.

He sighs his consent, and it's almost worth it when she edges her chair closer to his. One hand entwines with his own as the other reaches for the bottle, equipped with a wolf's head pourer she must have taken from the kitchens on the way here. He counts to four, five, _six_... "You're overpouring that," he murmurs, taking the bottle away. "You're going to get us drunk. Let me do it." He quickly finds equilibrium between the two cups, splashing eggnog amidst the liquor.

"Well, look at you, Mister Bartender," she mocks, cocking a brow and trying to play serious. She raises her mug to his, and their glasses clink like chips of ice in the winter winds. The twins drink deeply of milk and spice and honey, the mixture ivory and gold like their skin and hair. The sweetness ebbs as alcohol bites back at him, but he swallows, and her eyes are softer when their gazes meet again. "I suppose all that basketweaving back in college paid off? You _can_ make a stiff drink."

"That's why you love me," he smirks, inching closer.

"Hardly," she answers with a roll of her eyes, thumping the emptied glass down onto the bare wood of the table. "Another."

"One more," Jaime allows, pouring again. "You know how you get when you drink."

"Oh? How do I get?" Cersei challenges, all menacing wildfire simmering just behind the glass.

"Wine," he murmurs, insinuating his lips up against her waiting ear, "goes straight to your cunt half the time." _Alcohol makes her lips loose and her legs looser still,_ if only for him. He wants, more than anything, to edge his hand between her thighs and show her that he speaks the truth, but that's not for now. He knows that she'd never let him, not until the castle sleeps.

"Best that we're drinking liquor, then. Not that I think you'd be complaining much." She bites her lip, splashing a bit more of the liqueur into her own cup. Before he can protest, she turns her head, and their lips brush as he closes his eyes in surrender. "Relax, brotherlover. This is my last one, at least until we turn in for the night."

"We?" They're so close that his vision blurs when he finds his eyes again. She encompasses his field of view, his world, and it's hard to think through the cloud of his own signature scent reflected in her breath. _We_.

Sinful as it may be, he likes the sound of it.

"Please," Cersei spits, downing the rest of her drink. "As though I'll find any welcome in my own bedroom." Nimble hands find the hem of her sweater, pulling it over her head to reveal a long-line bralette spun of oxblood lace. She curls into his lap, kneading like a cat finding the perfect spot, apparently savoring his grasp of her hip, her back. Liquor and cotton slur her thoughts as they spill into the world. "He'll have three whores from wintertown in there by sundown, and I'll have a bruise on my face if I tell him elsewise." Her head shakes, a gesture of certain finality. "No, I'll be rooming with you, or else the babies, most like. We'll just simply have to stay up late enough that nobody else worries about _us_ getting to bed."

Jaime blanches at the frankness of her assertion. Her husband should be the one to wear a bruise upon the brow. He deserves it. "I never wanted this for you," he answers quietly. Fingers find elastic fastenings and metal pins, undoing the ornate arrangement of the braids in her hair. "I'd end it in a moment if you'd let me. When Father decided you'd have to marry someone else, I thought... Well, I never thought it would be like this."

"You thought I'd be with Rhaegar," she corrects. "That we both would. You've never forgiven me for marrying him," she states sleepily into his thigh. "For fucking another man."

"I wish you wouldn't make it about that," he snaps, even if it's almost true. "I've never forgiven myself for _letting_ you marry him. I always thought you'd hear me." _But you never did._ He stills as she grows quiet. "You want me to take them all out?" He can feel her head stirring against him, nodding her _yes_. The silk of her hair brushes at the callouses on his hands as he unwinds the knotwork there. Gold fans out to encircle bared shoulders like rays of sunlight. "You're all tensed up. You shouldn't let all of this weigh on you, sister. It's only a week."

"A week in Winterhell," she murmurs, nuzzling her face further into him.

"Winterhell? You shouldn't go nicknaming the place, you know," Jaime japes. "You're liable to get pregnant again."

"What?" Cersei whirls around to face him, quizzical. "Don't talk like that." Sad eyes finish the sentence for him. _Unless you mean it._

"Every time we've nicknamed a castle and spent the night together, a child has come from it," he explains with an eye roll, as though she should already understand. "Myrcella at Casterly Rock... And then Tommen, there again, shortly after she was born." He smirks. _Surgical birth does have its advantages._ "And you always said we made Joffrey at Greenshit, that one night in that bedroom with the big vanity mirror. You know, the first time after..." Regret stains his face as he trails off.

"After I lost the baby?" She sits up to straddle him, hands guiding his face to give her his full attention. "Oh, you can say it. _I_ can say it now." Tears fill absinthe eyes swirling with the biting ecstasies of spirits and ghosts, yet she grins. "I have the family I always wanted now... Because of you, you gave them to me." Her whisper is an exhale sneaking between his lips, a secret flowing from her directly into him. "They are lions, like their father."

"They're like _us_. And you weren't the only one that lost something." _We share everything. We must._

"But, you always said--"

"I was wrong," he says quietly. "I was wrong to suggest... That is... It wasn't something for you to suffer alone."

Her eyes flutter shut, damming up the brimming tears, and she inhales him, stealing his breath for her own. "Sure it's not just the liquor talking?"

"What's that adage?" he murmurs at her cheek, her skin just an ache of a moment from his teeth. "Drunk words are sober thoughts?"

"You're hardly drunk," she answers, something like lust dancing along her jutting jaw. When their lips finally touch, her teeth seek blood. They almost find, it, too, but not yet. "Don't tell me whiskey makes you wise, my brother."

"No," he says, her lips muffling the answer as its vibrations travel through her skin. "The Crone left all of her knowledge in our brother, you know that."

"Well, I fear you are right about one thing." Cersei gasps as her hips rock over his, tempting him. She is hungry, so hungry that his hands serve only to slow her movements rather than stilling them. "What was that you said, sweetling? About my cunt?" She squeaks as his hands run over her curves, and suddenly he wants nothing more than to let her take him, just here, just so. "I can't quite remember. All that talk of making babies, though... I remember _that_."

"Do you?" He giggles as her lips find his neck, _just the right spot._  He knows the one by now. "Sounds like you might need another drink. If you can still remember it so clearly."

"We never said what we were drinking to," she adjures as her teeth finally take their first taste of him. Blood rushes to the surface of his skin, redder and sharper still than the cinnamon that has made her this way. "To snow? Fairy lights and evergreens?" A gentle hand soothes the bite over as their eyes find each other. "To marriage?"

"No," Jaime ventures, biting back as he reaches for the bottle behind her once more. "To love. The things we do for love."

"Yes," she agrees, sipping from the mug offered by his baring hands. Cersei's fingers wrap around his throat, savoring the vibrations of his thoughts come tributes. Jaime lets the sound of his voice cloud her veins, and they are that much closer to being one again. "The things we do for love."


End file.
